Sunday School for Degenerates has been arguably the best show I’ve been to for each of the last two years during Winter Music Conference. The first year I went, I was treated to sets from Sebo K and Guy Gerber out in the blasting sun at the Pawn Shop. Then last year the hyper-weird set from Steve Bug, the genuinely intriguing set from Seth Troxler, the stand-out performance by the idyllic and punishing Ida Engberg, and total dance destruction from Jooris Voorn just when you thought you couldn’t take any more.
There are places to lie down and sleep, couches to relax on, school buses to stare ironically at, strange if tasty food cooked to order (kind of), and a convenient convenience store a short walk away, with magically rising prices as the days goes on. There is an ice cream truck, the potential for torrential rain that leaves you with the inevitability of doing the squish stomp on the lawn.
Now what can I say about Ida? She’s my tiny Swedish hero. I’m a sucker for irony, contrast, and fact flying in the face of fiction. So imagine my surprise last year when my good friend comes running to get and and says “dude, you gotta check this out! no really, get, the fuck, up”. So I grumble and get to my feet and slide forward to the front of the inside stage, and there she is, with this little grin on her face, plowing through these huge builds into pounding drops. Never too much energy, just a curious glow and a sweet smile, no jarring movements, just her little dance with her hands before the bass would kick. The thousand or so people who were there last year to see Ida surprise us all will never forget it – the best set of WMC 2009 for many of us. And she was coming back again this year, playing at 9:30 in the morning.
You best bet I would be there.
Now, a funny little story: this year she was playing with Adam Beyer, her label boss. And I gotta say, I truly missed just being able to see her alone and in control. He was constantly adjust her settings, shifting her movements, and playing with effects; there was very obvious tension behind the decks, with her occasionally looking to him for approval rather than just playing for the audience like how she did last year. I certainly wasn’t disappointed in their whole set, it was great. But Adam Beyer and his 8 ft. tall form look as though they should be behind a hard techno set. He dwarfed Ida and made my irony and contrast fundamentals disappear.
And everybody knows, even if the purists fight against it, that no show is just about the music. It’s about presentation, about environment, about vibe, and a million other things. Last year was perfect in all regard to Ida’s set. This year was perfect in everything except that fact that she was sharing the stage. I’m sure he’s technically a better DJ, with tons more experience and technical ability, but he should have taken the moment to step back and let her ride the music. When everything is right, a show can be magical. The interactions between the two of them while they were playing took away some of that.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh66Yhepm3g
Paco’s set was the surprise event of WMC 2010 for me. I’ve seen him a few times before, I’ve listened to his productions and mixes, and never been totally blown away. But this time, it was mind-bending. It may have helped that the speakers were the loudest, the lights were the brightest, and that I was completely at the end of my energy limits. But there he was, with his super-serious face on, smoking his cigarettes and crushing the last few hours of my Miami experience away.
I was front row and center, with a bunch of the people I’d come to the show with, letting out the last bits of energy that I had left. By the time Paco started, I had already been at Sunday School for Degenerates for 10.5 hours. I’d heard wonderful music from Ida, from Seth Troxler, from Tom Middleton (barring that strange excursion into trance for a few records?), from Pawel, from Mathias K, from Funktion, with his super simple computer and MIDI controller set up that he punished us with, and from Steve Bug.
I was totally spent, drained, wrung out.
And yet here was one last final hurrah in catastrophically pounding fashion. I was curious, looking at the lineup earlier, why they would put Steve Bug before Paco. Now I understood why. Paco brought his arsenal with him; 50 cal. beats. This wasn’t about sharpshooting. It was about laying waste to anyone who was left alive on the battle field. And then you were resurrected. And gunned down again. Double shot to the head, execution style.
Sunday School for Degenerates 2010, Brought it Once Again
Sunday School for Degenerates has been arguably the best show I’ve been to for each of the last two years during Winter Music Conference. The first year I went, I was treated to sets from Sebo K and Guy Gerber out in the blasting sun at the Pawn Shop. Then last year the hyper-weird set from Steve Bug, the genuinely intriguing set from Seth Troxler, the stand-out performance by the idyllic and punishing Ida Engberg, and total dance destruction from Jooris Voorn just when you thought you couldn’t take any more.
There are places to lie down and sleep, couches to relax on, school buses to stare ironically at, strange if tasty food cooked to order (kind of), and a convenient convenience store a short walk away, with magically rising prices as the days goes on. There is an ice cream truck, the potential for torrential rain that leaves you with the inevitability of doing the squish stomp on the lawn.
Now what can I say about Ida? She’s my tiny Swedish hero. I’m a sucker for irony, contrast, and fact flying in the face of fiction. So imagine my surprise last year when my good friend comes running to get and and says “dude, you gotta check this out! no really, get, the fuck, up”. So I grumble and get to my feet and slide forward to the front of the inside stage, and there she is, with this little grin on her face, plowing through these huge builds into pounding drops. Never too much energy, just a curious glow and a sweet smile, no jarring movements, just her little dance with her hands before the bass would kick. The thousand or so people who were there last year to see Ida surprise us all will never forget it – the best set of WMC 2009 for many of us. And she was coming back again this year, playing at 9:30 in the morning.
You best bet I would be there.
Now, a funny little story: this year she was playing with Adam Beyer, her label boss. And I gotta say, I truly missed just being able to see her alone and in control. He was constantly adjust her settings, shifting her movements, and playing with effects; there was very obvious tension behind the decks, with her occasionally looking to him for approval rather than just playing for the audience like how she did last year. I certainly wasn’t disappointed in their whole set, it was great. But Adam Beyer and his 8 ft. tall form look as though they should be behind a hard techno set. He dwarfed Ida and made my irony and contrast fundamentals disappear.
And everybody knows, even if the purists fight against it, that no show is just about the music. It’s about presentation, about environment, about vibe, and a million other things. Last year was perfect in all regard to Ida’s set. This year was perfect in everything except that fact that she was sharing the stage. I’m sure he’s technically a better DJ, with tons more experience and technical ability, but he should have taken the moment to step back and let her ride the music. When everything is right, a show can be magical. The interactions between the two of them while they were playing took away some of that.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh66Yhepm3g
Paco’s set was the surprise event of WMC 2010 for me. I’ve seen him a few times before, I’ve listened to his productions and mixes, and never been totally blown away. But this time, it was mind-bending. It may have helped that the speakers were the loudest, the lights were the brightest, and that I was completely at the end of my energy limits. But there he was, with his super-serious face on, smoking his cigarettes and crushing the last few hours of my Miami experience away.
I was front row and center, with a bunch of the people I’d come to the show with, letting out the last bits of energy that I had left. By the time Paco started, I had already been at Sunday School for Degenerates for 10.5 hours. I’d heard wonderful music from Ida, from Seth Troxler, from Tom Middleton (barring that strange excursion into trance for a few records?), from Pawel, from Mathias K, from Funktion, with his super simple computer and MIDI controller set up that he punished us with, and from Steve Bug.
I was totally spent, drained, wrung out.
And yet here was one last final hurrah in catastrophically pounding fashion. I was curious, looking at the lineup earlier, why they would put Steve Bug before Paco. Now I understood why. Paco brought his arsenal with him; 50 cal. beats. This wasn’t about sharpshooting. It was about laying waste to anyone who was left alive on the battle field. And then you were resurrected. And gunned down again. Double shot to the head, execution style.
It was the last set I heard during WMC 2010.
I said bring it.
He brought it.